Mark Tiborsky, an indefatigable member of the Northeast Ohio secular community who is actively involved in the Freethinkers, Center of Inquiry, and Coalition of Reason has issued a press release about my upcoming debate with Rev, Joe Puckett, where I will be affirming the proposition that god does not exist.
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In the wake of the recent killings in California that have grabbed the public’s attention, there has been an odd trend in the debate over the motives of the killer. Was it misogyny? Or was it some other cause such a mental illness or video games or films or even homosexuality? For some reason, there has been a reluctance in some circles (especially Fox News) to blame the killer’s actions on his attitudes towards women and shift the focus to these other factors.
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When we see these movements by Christians to insert prayer into schools and government meetings and to put up monuments to the Ten Commandments and other religious symbols in public spaces, the natural reaction has been to encourage non-Christian groups also exercise the same right to have official sanction of their religion by saying their own prayers and putting up their own monuments.
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It’s been awhile since I wrote about cricket. The Sri Lankan cricket team is touring England right now and on June 3, 2014, during the deciding game in the five-match series of one-day games that Sri Lanka won 3-2), there occurred something that has caused a huge controversy. Americans will be mystified as to why there was even a fuss about this when I explain what happened using an analogy from baseball.
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Apart from any constitutional questions involved, I think reasonable people can and do disagree on whether it is acceptable for private individuals to own guns. I myself over time have shifted my view away from totally opposing private gun ownership except under exceptional circumstances to thinking that people do have a right to own guns. But given that it is a lethal weapon, they have to earn the right to do so by showing that they understand the responsibility of it. This would require training in its use and certification of competence.
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It used to be the case that all hurricane names from 1953 to 1978 were female because hurricanes were ‘unpredictable’ just like women (!) but that kind of sexist stereotyping became unacceptable and they decided to alternate between male and female names.
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In an interview with NPR, new editor of the New York Times Dean Baquet regrets that the paper has previously sat on stories at the behest of the government. He acknowledges that this is what cost them the Snowden scoops that he says that he would have loved to have got.
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It is a given that Christianity is the most common religion across the US. But the Washington Post has a nice set of graphics that provide a state-by-state breakdown (and even down to the county level) of the second most popular religions, and there were some surprises.
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Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan also reviews films for NPR and in general I have found his recommendations to agree with my own tastes. So I was interested to hear a clip that he had published a new book where he recommends 54 films, starting from the 1920s until today, that he thinks that everyone should see. He feels that especially with older films, there are some gems that people today are not aware of.
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We tend to think that opposition within the Abrahamic religions to the teaching of evolution and sex education in schools is driven by Christians and Muslims, and that the Jewish religion is more flexible in its ability to interpret its scriptures and thus has no problems with either.
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